Robert Caruso, BundlePost Founder

Robert Caruso is a technology, sales and marketing executive. Passionate about tech and social media, Robert founded BundlePost, a social content management system. BundlePost easily automates the process of finding, organizing, managing and scheduling social media content. He is the proud father of two.

Q What inspired you to enter your profession?

A I’ve been in sales, technology, and marketing since I was 17 years old. It’s in my blood, and was an easy transition to social media.

Unique to many, I got started in social media very early on using classmates.com. Growing up as a kid, I never went to the same school for more than 2 years in a row. So for me, Classmates wasn’t just something interesting, it was a requirement to stay in touch with people over time.

Q What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?

A The 2 tools that I can’t live without are ManageFlitter for managing Twitter and growing community. I believe Twitter is the hub of the social web. If you can’t execute well on Twitter, you’re going to have challenges everywhere else.

The second would be BundlePost. There’s no way we could do what we do without it. There are only 4 of us in this company. BundlePost is the only way we are able to do our individual social media as well as the brand’s social media.

Q What’s your best time-saving shortcut productivity tip?

A Although I don’t want to turn this into a pitch, I’d have to say BundlePost. It is efficiency. Many people don’t know that we began as a social media agency. We developed BundlePost to use ourselves. However, we created something so powerful, we knew everyone doing social media marketing needed it.

We are effective because we are so efficient. The time that we used to spend managing and scheduling content is now spent engaging and building relationships.

Q What everyday thing do you think are you better at than anybody else?

A Respond. Our entire team is great at responding. When somebody shares, asks questions, retweets, or comments that’s an immediate opportunity. Many in this industry just don’t get that. Waiting an hour or longer to respond just isn’t acceptable if you’re going to be effective in this business.

Q What are you currently reading?

A I read information on the internet all day every day. I look for unique kernels of information that are off the beaten path. In social media you have to consistently share unique kernels of content that strikes a chord with your audience. It’s also important to give exposure to those people that aren’t getting the traffic and aren’t known, but are brilliant.

Q What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

A My first mentor, Nic Knieval, (Evel Knieval’s brother) said, “People gravitate towards people like them. People relate to people like them; people buy from people they know and like.” Nic became like a second dad to me. I learned sales and management from him at the age of 17. His advice from so many years back works really well in the realm of social media.

Q What’s your greatest challenge?

A Taking the social media industry back to a results based focus. At no charge, I teach about 300 hundred social media agencies how to be successful in this business. I share everything that we learned when we were an agency. I help them to be effective, exceptional and profitable.

If we don’t move the industry into real revenue, it will be the next dot bomb. I hope to positively impact the industry and the people in it.

Q What’s your greatest achievement?

A Being a dad. Frankly, I’m not perfect, but both of my kids would say it’s the most important thing to me.

Q Anything else you want to add?

A Website-suggested sharing of popular content is just not effective. Shared content should be recent, relevant, and unique. If you’re sharing content that’s already been seen or isn’t relevant to your target audience, you won’t be effective in this industry.

Content leads to conversations. Conversations lead to relationships. Relationships result in ROI. If your content isn’t generating conversations by your intended target audience, you have the wrong content strategy. You have to curate, create, and market content.

We are working on some things that will disrupt the online digital marketing space. We are building the world’s first RSS and content index. The goal is to improve content discovery and curation, providing bloggers and content managers new ways to expand their reach. New tools will be added for traffic analytics and new marketing capabilities.

Q Who would you like to see answer these same questions?

A There are two people, Lynn Abate-Johnson, @peoplefw, and Brian Vickery, an executive with Pulse Analytics. Both will have a very good perspective, one from a social media agency, and one from a larger software brand.

More about Robert Caruso

As a web designer and developer, I have managed, built, launched, and maintained websites that meet my clients' objectives. I develop dynamic websites with content management systems based on the latest design trends. My background as an educator and instructor helps me create user-friendly interfaces and teach my clients how to update their own sites.